Cold Exterior
by Azaisya
Summary: A long time ago, Pitch hadn't been alone. He'd had her. (Oneshot, non-canon compliant, PitchxOC.)


**This is my first ROTG fanfic. So. Let me just say that I haven't seen the movie in a while; I don't know why I wrote this. I've also never read the books, so the characters' backgrounds are not canon-compliant. Sorry if Pitch is OOC, because, like I said, I haven't seen the movie recently or ever read the books.**

**I'm not quite sure when this takes place. Before Jack became a Guardian. That I know.**

**Also. This story has two OCs in it. The female is my own and is here to stay whether you like it or not. I've no clue who the male is.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians. **

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><p>"You have to stop picking fights with the Guardians," a woman said sternly, even as her fingers moved deftly.<p>

Sitting not-quite-so-patiently before her, Pitch Black sneered. "Maybe they should stop picking fights with me."

In response, she pulled unnecessarily roughly on the bandage she was tying around his forearm. When he glared, she merely shook her dark brown hair out of her face. "Pitch, I mean it," she said, in that no-nonsense voice that he knew so well.

With a sigh, Pitch rolled his head on his shoulders, but refrained from doing anything else, because otherwise his various wounds would hurt and she would scold him more.

Her hands, pale in the darkness, reached out and wrapped firmly around his chin. Determinedly, she brought his gold eyes up to meet her own black ones. Her fingers gently stroked a cut on his narrow face, and he felt himself stiffen. But then she rapped him sharply on the side of his head. "Pitch, listen to me. Stop picking fights with the Guardians. At least . . . at least until you're sure you can win."

He examined her, eyes roaming over her familiar heart-shaped face, her almond-shaped eyes, her thin lips, her downturned nose, her glossy hair. He still remembered the day he had first seen her as she was now.

_Pitch smirked at a young woman, watching as the nightmares circled her. She was lying limply in her cage, her light brown hair fanned out over the ground. Her eyes — pale blue and unseeing — were pointed upwards, her irises half hidden by her eyelids._

_The Boogeyman sighed, and his shoulders slumped. Her fear was no longer there; he had nothing to feed off of. She had long since retreated inside herself to a place that he could not reach, no matter how hard he tried._

_Without anybody to see him, he allowed despair to fill him. For the first time in what felt like forever, someone other than a child had seen him. And she had turned out to be _weak_._

_(Of course, he would never ever admit that he was just lonely, and that her presence had kept the despair at bay.)_

_There was a clatter, and Pitch stood, reasserting his smirk so that no one would ever think that he ever had any regrets._

_The young woman in the cage shot into a sitting position so abruptly that Pitch, distracted, couldn't fade into the shadows fast enough for a dramatic monologue before a spirit burst into the cavernous room._

_The woman shouted, "I'm here!"_

_Pitch scowled at the brown-haired woman. Even in her weakened state, she was somehow managing to fend off the Nightmares that trotted around her. "Have you lost something?" Pitch asked drily, enjoying the sudden surge of fear when the spirit noticed the woman trapped in the cage._

_The spirit snarled. He was some kind of elemental spirit, powerful in his own right, but hopelessly under-matched against the King of Nightmares. "Let her go," he said forcefully _

_Pitch sank into the shadows and reappeared just outside the woman's cage, hoping to startle her. To his dismay, she merely shot him a shrewd glance. How had she recovered so quickly? "Oh, you mean her?" he asked, because he had to keep up appearances._

_Fire appeared in the spirit's hand. It sharpened and solidified, forming a dagger._

_"Come and get her," Pitch taunted, opening up the door to the cage. One of his Nightmares stood near the entrance, to discourage her from running out._

_To trap a spirit here. . . . This particular one had been rumored to be close friends with the Guardians. He would be useful as bait. And a spirit's fear was _so_ much more fulfilling than a mere human's._

_The spirit threw the dagger. Pitch realized belatedly what was happening. Before he could move, the woman shrieked, "No!"_

_Faster than the eye could follow, she threw herself at Pitch. The knife hit her in the chest, and she let out a cry. Knocked to the ground by her leap, Pitch struggled out from underneath her, shocked._

_"No! Melanie!" the spirit cried, racing towards her body, which was shaking._

_Pitch didn't move, completely stunned. The dagger wouldn't have killed him. It would have hurt him, weakened him, but it wouldn't have killed him. And this woman — Melanie — had willingly thrown away her life to save her captor and tormentor._

_"Why?" the spirit whispered._

_Melanie's eyes flickered weakly to Pitch. "Death isn't the answer," she whispered, her voice broken as she struggled to breathe, "Revenge is never—" She drew in her breath, a great shuddering gasp, and stilled. The spirit wailed and fled, leaving Pitch alone with the body of the woman who had saved him quite a bit of pain__._

_He watched with wide eyes as her body started glowing. The dagger vanished, the wound closed, and the blood evaporated. Before Pitch could say anything, she was born anew, not as a human, but as a spirit._

_He would imprison her again, if only to steal that little bit of light in his dark world._

He tore his golden gaze away from the spirit that had turned dark after years of living away from any light, be it the light of the laughter of children or the glow of the moon. The spirit that had become so much more to him than he had ever anticipated. But he could never let her know that he felt anything for her. She would scorn him; who wouldn't? And so he merely twisted his lips into a lofty expression, somehow managing to glare down at her when he was seated and she was standing.

"Melanie, I will do what I want. I am the Boogeyman. Nobody can control me," he told her, mostly to put her back in her place. Of course, he would never admit to himself that he just wanted to hear her scold again, to know that she wasn't afraid of him, which he loved.

Some might've quailed by now. But not her. Never her. Melanie stepped back, propping a hand on her hip. As always, she wore a thin black dress, her neckline falling tauntingly low and her feet bare. "Pitch Black, I spent the last fifty years humiliating you out of your regality. Don't you dare start now."

Pitch sneered at her, which was as close as he ever allowed himself to smiling. A strange desire overcame him, and he suddenly wanted to grab the spirit of revenge and kiss her violently. "Tie the knot right," he said instead, quelling the urge like he had done for so long. It was getting harder, but he didn't care.

Melanie sighed and obeyed, her fingers flashing over the bandage as she did so. There was another moment of silence, in which her close presence made his heart beat traitorously, and then she broke it. She always did. "Pitch, please."

His golden eyes snapped to her dark ones, which were studiously directed at the knot she was tying. She never pleaded. Trapped though she was, she was proud. In the past century that they had lived together, the word "please" had never once passed through her lips.

And so he reacted the only way he knew how to. He explored her fears. What he found shocked him. In the beginning, the new spirit's fears had been simple. She'd been afraid of him, afraid she'd never see the light of day again, afraid that she'd be tormented by living nightmares every moment of eternity.

But now. Now she was afraid _for_ him, afraid that she'd be stuck on this world without him, afraid that she would no longer have his nightmares to hide behind.

He felt as though his breath had been knocked out of him. Without his consent, one of his hands darted out and wrapped around her wrist. As a spirit of revenge, — albeit a minor one — she had her own limited abilities. Sensing vague imprints of emotions was one of them.

Her eyes moved slowly from his hand to his eyes. She had stopped moving. Her hand was shaking slightly, her dark eyes wide. No, she wasn't perfect. But Melanie was beautiful in her own way.

Shoving his own emotions down further and harder than before, Pitch murmured, "Not that tightly."

Melanie's eyes went wider, and she pulled away. But then anger flashed in those dark orbs, hot and bright. "Damn it, Pitch!" she snapped, somehow managing to shout and not raise her voice at the same time, "I know you're not as evil as everybody thinks! Why do you have to act so damn _heartless_ all the time?!" She turned on her heel, her skirts flaring around her calves, and then she stormed away, leaving Pitch with a distinct feeling of having lost something.

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><p><strong>review<strong>.


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